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March 07, 2012
The American Prospect: On Newt Gingrich's Super-Bad Super Tuesday.
"Newt Gingrich had a terrible Super Tuesday." Even if they are waning, let's give Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul (and especially Paul) some credit for adding to the conversation America has every four years. I can't and won't vote for any of the GOP candidates we've been forced-fed so far. But each, especially Paul and Santorum, warts and all, is more authentic--i.e., like me, you may not "like" them or buy into them, but at least they actually believe what they are saying--than Romney, who America is about to meet on a much larger scale. While he is talented, smart and accomplished, Mitt is one very insular and uber-eccentric man, folks. My prediction: he will give most of us, at least us Yanks with intuition and horse sense, the King-Hell Creeps. See at Jay Harris's greatly new-and-improved The American Prospect this piece: Newt's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Super Bad Tuesday. It begins:
Newt Gingrich had a terrible Super Tuesday.
Yes, yes, he won Georgia, his home state, going away. But he not only failed to win any of the other nine states that held elections, he failed to place second in any of them as well.
He came in third in the other two Southern states that held contests—Tennessee and Oklahoma. In five states—Alaska, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Vermont—he ran fourth, behind Ron Paul.
Newt Gingrich in early 1995
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Esquire Magazine: "What the Hell Is Happening in Russia?"
Every month, both Esquire magazine and the Russian people get feistier and funnier. And although this Esquire piece appeared on March 2, just before Vladimir Putin's reelection on Sunday, March 4, it's the best current report on The Russian Bourgeoisie Gone Wild you could visit. Much of its power, and charm, comes from its timeline summaries of the uprising beginning with the December 4, 2011 protests. The truth--and the truth is especially important here, as we watch eastern Europeans change before our eyes into different kinds of voters and humans--is also hilarious. Note: If you don't think Russian politics affects your customers, clients, business or professional practice, think again. Excerpts from December 10th and 24 summaries:
DECEMBER 10: As more evidence of fraud and abuse from courts, police stations, and prisons hits Facebook, protesters organize another rally. Fifty to sixty thousand people (half of them registered in a Facebook event called "Rally for Fair Elections") come to Moscow's Bolotnaya Square, right across the river from the Kremlin, and meet under banners that vary from serious to silly: "No Taxation Without Representation," "I Didn't Vote for These Bastards, I Voted for the Other Bastards".
Even though the protesters chant, "Putin, Leave!", the mood of the whole movement is decidedly less aggressive. And even though the protesters' demands are clear — cancel the election results, fire Churov, punish those responsible for fraud, and set up fair elections — nobody really listens to the people who speak from the stage, mostly old-school oppositional leaders, from the Right and from the ultra-Left, who have fiercely fought Putin's regime for the last decade without much success and without many followers. Most of the protesters simply stand there, talking to their friends about where to go on YouTube to see fresh evidence of election fraud and where they should meet for drinks after the rally.
DECEMBER 24: Seventy thousand to eighty thousand people meet on Sakharov Avenue, and this time they are pissed. They meet under banners that read "We Are Not Monkey People, and Russia Is No Jungle" and play on Putin's "condom" comment by referring to him as a "scumbag." They reiterate their calls for free and fair elections, and in theory the authorities could easily go through with all these demands. In the twelve years of Putin's reign, the Russian parliament has become totally dependent on the presidency, its members — irrespective of party affiliation — voting according to instructions from the government.
Esquire/(Top) Denis Sinyakov/Reuters; (bottom left) Max Avdeev; (bottom right) GREENFIELD/SIPA
Posted by JD Hull at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)